In the context of network security, the threat landscape has grown exponentially over the last few years. The threat landscape has grown so much that most Anti-Virus vendors are evaluating and implementing various technologies to mitigate the unmatched growth in the number of threats. As the threat landscape grows, so does the need to mitigate the threats associated with that growth.
Currently, the number of network based lookups required in a network cloud is very high. These network based lookups include performing signature lookups across a network for each file scanned on a system (e.g. a client computer, etc.). Thus, as the number of threats increase, the number of lookups required to ensure the network is secure also increases.
In some cases, however, it may be desirable to keep the lookup rate to less than a certain number of lookups per day. For example, it may be desirable to keep the lookup rate to less than ten lookups per day per client. Thus, harsh criteria is often used to keep the lookup rates low. As a result, many problematic items (e.g. malware, infected files, etc.) are not examined and such items are missed on the client systems. There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.